


#imwithsherlock

by Mad_Maudlin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Graffiti, Meta, Twitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with rumors, and a hashtag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	#imwithsherlock

It started with graffiti, with rumors, with a Twitter hashtag:

 _#imwithsherlock_

Not that we really believed it—not everybody, not at first. The tabloids wouldn't publish anything else right after, just people talking bollocks about him, so there was something silly and subversive about contradicting the headlines, making stuff up. But when Fleet Street got bored and found another shiny object, we were still there, still talking to each other, still talking at all.

 _#imwithsherlock_

There were other rumors, too—that people had been bribed, had been threatened, had been killed. People who went to uni with him. People who'd hired him in the past. Made some of us leery about talking at all, but that's where Twitter came in, and G+, and anonymous blogs via proxy servers.

 _He knew things I'd never told anyone, ever._

 _He diagnosed a heart condition even my GP had missed!_

 _My grandmother hid her diamonds in a false-bottomed drawer when she fled the Russian Revolution and he found them in fifteen minutes. Are you saying he's a time traveler?_

 _#imwithsherlock_

Henry Knight really broke it—took out an advert in three different newspapers announcing that he'd been getting death threats if he ever talked about what happened in Baskerville. Helped that his car exploded the next day, and thank God nobody actually got hurt and all, but that was _amazing_ and _insane._ That got people talking, all right, got people coming out of the woodwork to speak up, got people to think.

 _He gave me fifty quid for watching one little shop and taking pictures of all the men with beards who came in and out._

 _He got me off a murder charge and never asked for a penny._

 _I worked for the BBC for fifteen years and I've never heard of Richard Brook._

 _#imwithsherlock._

Kitty Reilly talked back, of course, and she talked a good story, but we had questions she couldn't answer and it looked bad that her informant was suddenly AWOL. And meanwhile we were still talking. Telling stories, posting blogs. Got into the papers, a few of us. They can't blow up everybody's cars, can they? Whoever _they_ are.

 _I remember 'The Storyteller' but the presenter was a woman and her name sure wasn't Richard._

 _I never wrote anything on Richard Brook and I demand the_ Herald _redact that article at once._

 _He brought my husband's killer to justice._

 _He saved my life._

 _#imwithsherlock_

This bloke Chris made up a nice graphic for everyone to use, based on all the graffiti We all changed our Facebook photos to it for a week. We started asking about Richard Brook's side of the story. We started asking for his birth certificate.

 _He deduced our whole uni class and never asked for a cent. Kept doing it even though we all hated him._

 _#imwithsherlock_

It got big when Anonymous got on our side. They spammed NSY's website with pictures of kittens in deerstalkers until someone agreed to reopen the Moriarty cases. Not that anyone did, but it was funny to watch the CDI try to talk about kittens in a proper press conference, and it got us press all over the world.

It got big when John started blogging again.

 _I saw him work, once—he pulled people off a bus and shouted at them. Knew which ones were the tourists and everything. What d'you call that, a flash mob?_

 _#imwithsherlock_

We were a bit weirded out by John talking to us, not gonna lie—it was a little like, I dunno, breaking the fourth wall, or when a politician's widow takes his old office. (Not that anyone's saying John's _gay,_ just. Well. You know.) He admitted he hadn't planned on ever using the blog again, and the old comments were kind of a mess of hate mail and spam and Russian mail-order brides, but somebody set him up with a much better Captcha going forward. The important thing was, John said he was grateful, that he'd take all the help he could get.

A bunch of us invited him out for dinner, and you know, he's a lot taller than he looks in the pictures.

 _Where's Richard Brook now, eh?_

 _Who really kidnapped those kids?_

 _When are we going to get a proper investigation?_

 _#imwithsherlock_

We tried a letter-writing campaign to NSY to get the cases reopened, and some people thought it would be funny to mail them loads of cigarettes with messages wrote on the cartons, or the kitten pictures, or both. We tried to get Bono involved, but, you know, AIDS. We tried to start an Occupy Baker Street until Mrs. Hudson complained about the mess.

We kept posting, kept talking, kept writing, kept painting the walls.

 _#imwithsherlock all the way!_

 _#imwithsherlock and so can you!_

 _Proud to say #imwithsherlock bitches!_

John says he'll never give up until everyone knows the truth, and we'll be with him every step of the way.

We're with Sherlock.

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this fic is not in any way condoning a certain "guerilla art" campaign; that's not my wank. I have other, different wanks to be involved in.


End file.
